112 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



etich methods as at present are pursued, and which threaten the speedy extermina- 

 tion of those animals and consequent serious loss to mankind. 



The ministers of the United States to Geruiiiny, Sweden and Norway, Russia, 

 Jai)an, and Great Britain have been each similarly addressed on the subject referred 

 to in this instruction. 



I am, etc., T. F. Bayard. 



That was the first attitude taken by tbe Govern meut of the United 

 States towards the Government of Great Britain in reference to this 

 question and to the questions which might be involved in it. Distinct 

 discussion is avoide<l. All extreme avssertious are waived in view of 

 the conciliatory purposes for which it was written. Nevertheless the 

 grounds upon which the Government would put its case are not indis- 

 tinctly foreshadowed. They are that the property in question, that of 

 the seals, was of a peculiar nature, and that the proper protection of it 

 might justify the exercise by the United States of an exceptional marine 

 jurisdiction. No assumption of exclusive dominion over ijering Sea, or 

 anything of the kind, is asserted. 



Tisat was the attitude which was taken by the United States during 

 the administration of Mr. Cleveland and during what I have ventured 

 to call, in giving an account of the whole controversy, the first stage 

 of the controversy. The next stage of it is occupied with the dealings 

 with the subject during the administration of President Harrison; and 

 the first statement under that administration of tlie grounds upon which 

 the United States based the assertion of its rights connected with the 

 sealing industry was, as the learned Arbitrators will remember, set forth 

 by Mr. Blaine in his note of January 22, 1890, which is found on page 

 200. That letter I have once read. It is quite long and I do not think 

 it necessary to rei)eat the reading of it. It is, however, important to 

 consider the substance of it, and I shall venture to state that, so far as 

 it rehites to the grounds taken by the United States. 



Tliat substance is this: That the seals are an animal in a high degree 

 useful to mankind; that Russia engaged in the industry of })reserving 

 them, cherishing^tltem, and taking the annual increase on the Pribylot 

 Islands at a very early period ; and that from the time when she first 

 engaged in that industry down to the time of the cession to the United 

 States, no other nation and no other people had ever attempted to 

 interfere with that right; that the United States acquired this industry 

 together with the rest of their ac(iuisition from Russia by the Treaty of 

 18(57, and that the United States had carried on the same industry in 

 substantially the same way without any interference by other nations, 

 or other men, until the practice of pelagic sealing was introduced ; that 

 this practice of pelagic sealing was destructive of the seal and therefore 

 destructive not only of this particular industry of the United States, 

 but destructive of the interest which all mankind had in this animal; 

 that it was a pure wrong — to use his phrase — contra bonos mores, and 

 consequently the United States had a right to prevent this invasion of 

 one of its own industries which was thus persisted in without any right 

 whatever, and which was ])urely an assertion of a wrong. Those are 

 the grounds taken by Mr. Blaine in this note. That is the same ground 

 that the Government of the United States has asserted from the first 

 and which it still continues to assert. 



Now, in order to show that those grounds were perfectly well under- 

 .stootl, and especially by the British Government, I call attention to 

 Lord Salisbury's note in answer to that of Mr. Bhiine, which will be 

 found on ])age 207. He undertakes to reduce to distinct points the 

 several ])ositions taken by Mr. Blaine in tliat long letter; and I will 

 read so much of it: 



